1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to roaming telephone network subscriber calls, or long distance and/or prepaid phone card calls, and more particularly to management of subscriber home network billing records corresponding to roaming telephone network subscribers"" telephone calls.
2. Description of the Background Art
The introduction of telephone network subscriber cards (i.e., phone cards) has allowed people to communicate by telephone when away from a home or office telephone, such as while traveling, even in other parts of the world. A telephone network subscriber does not need to use a cell telephone, and the subscriber will accrue telephone charges that must be reconciled by the subscriber""s home network. Regardless of where in the world a telephone network telephone subscriber is, the subscriber can place a call and have that call appear on the subscriber""s long distance bill. The subscriber dials a special telephone number (i.e., an ingress gateway) associated with the roaming network, the subscriber enters a personal identification number (PIN) and password associated with the subscriber""s telephone to authenticate the call, and then the call is placed.
In scenarios in which roaming occurs, billing record management may become very complex and time-consuming. Complexity increases when partner networks are involved in the calling scenario along with a roaming network and a subscriber""s home network. In addition, prepaid phone cards are becoming more prevalent, especially outside of the United States. Without a telephone roaming feature, purchasers of phone cards are limited to only one location. Telephone networks also offer phone cards with long distance features that may or may not be prepaid.
In prior art systems a subscriber""s home network must regularly poll partner networks to obtain billing records. This is true even for those networks that may have the extremes of zero or many transactions to harvest. Additionally, a local network must post only one transaction at a time.
Therefore, there remains a need for an improved system and method for a subscriber""s home network to quickly and efficiently manage roaming billing records.
The present invention provides a system and method for managing roaming billing records for a phone card caller""s home subscriber network. The invention includes a method for roaming networks to push roaming billing records in real time back to a subscriber""s home network.
The method of processing roaming billing record information from a roaming network begins with a telephone network subscriber initiating a telephone call that is routed to an ingress gateway. The subscriber""s database identification (ID) is determined during subscriber authentication. The call is set up, connected and completed. The ingress gateway then sends its billing information to its Command Center in the roaming network. The Command Center reviews the billing information, stores a corresponding billing record in a local database, and compares the subscriber""s database ID to its own database ID. If the two ID""s are different then the Command Center searches a list of xe2x80x9cRoaming Partner Networks,xe2x80x9d their associated database ID""s, and a list of Command Centers in each network, and forwards a copy, within an acknowledgement (ACK) message, to a Command Center in the home network of the telephone network subscriber. The Command Center in the home network marks the billing record as axe2x80x9croaming copyxe2x80x9d billing record, saves the billing record to a local database, and sends an acknowledgement (ACK) message to the roaming network Command Center.
Other advantages and features of the present invention will be apparent from the drawings and detailed description as set forth below.